Chapter 223

"Do you know what skills the Long Wang has?"

"Don't misunderstand! We are practitioners of the Dao and also know spells. Practitioners who know spells often discuss them with each other; this is very normal!"

The senior brother and junior sister said one sentence each.

"This... how would I know..."

The yaoguai felt something was wrong but didn't dare not answer.

"Are there any other taboos?"

"Taboos, well..."

The yaoguai stood weakly on the spot, searching his memory: "I remember one thing: when you see the Long Wang, you must call him Long Wang; you cannot call him, call him crocodile."

"Anything else?"

"There is one more thing... I don't know if it counts..." The yaoguai paused, looking at him timidly.

"Go ahead and say it."

"It's that humans are more powerful than yaoguai. Even if yaoguai attain the Dao, they change into human form, speak human language, write human characters, and wear human clothes. I don't know how to, how to put it, but if you get there, they are all yaoguai. It's best if you don't show contempt for yaoguai, otherwise they will feel you are slighting them." The yaoguai paused again. "They will get angry and sad."

"We naturally know this."

Lin Jue nodded, and the Xiao Shimei also nodded beside him.

"That, that's all."

The yaoguai had finished speaking, but his eyes were even more afraid when looking at them, as if he feared they would kill the donkey after it had finished grinding the mill, or kill him to silence him.

"Thank you for telling us."

Lin Jue bowed to him, then changed the subject:

"However, blocking the road to harm people and extorting money is still wrong and shouldn't be done. By rights, I should hand you over to the divine official and let the spirits judge you. However, I fear that the spirits here are rarely diligent and responsible. I worry that if you are sent there, they will just kill you, which would be a pity for this cultivation you have attained, so let it be."

The yaoguai showed fear when he heard he was going to be handed over to the divine official, and only breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the second half.

"Fuyao."

Lin Jue turned his head and took a look.

It was unknown when, but the huge three-tailed white fox beside him had become the same size as the tabby cat beside it, sitting on the ground and licking its paws.

On the contrary, the tabby cat was looking blank.

Hearing Lin Jue call it, it immediately understood, walked over, raised its paw, and pressed it on the yaoguai.

The yaoguai hurriedly pulled up his pant leg to check, and saw that a fox paw mark had appeared on his leg, looking very much like a plum blossom, and then it quickly disappeared.

"This..."

"Since you told us the matter, we have the heart to spare you. However, we are entrusted by others after all. No matter how helpless you are or what other reasons you have, you shouldn't extort money and offerings from others. Although we can choose not to pursue you, you must return all the money you extorted."

Lin Jue said to it:

"You should be clear about how you extorted the money and offerings. Since you have the ability to make others have to offer you offerings and money after returning home, we also have ways to trouble you. But don't be afraid; after you return all the money, come find us, and we will remove this mark for you."

"As you command."

The yaoguai trembled: "Where does the True Lord live?"

"South of Runze City, there is a place where villages and shops gather, quite prosperous and lively. Follow the official road from here toward Runze City. When you are about to reach that place, a few dozen steps away, there is a small path on the left. Enter the small path for more than a hundred steps and there is a small thatched courtyard with a peach tree planted in the courtyard. We live there," Lin Jue said. "If you can't find it, it doesn't matter. When you get close, my Fuyao will know and come to pick you up."

"I have noted it down."

"And as for what you just said about the Long Wang's trouble and the missing grand gift, we will make it up for you then, as a token of thanks."

"This..."

The yaoguai was stunned again.

"What? Surprised?" Lin Jue smiled. "You gave us a pleasant surprise, so we will give you one too."

The yaoguai then hurriedly straightened his expression, cupped his hands, and bowed deeply.

"No need for that. By the way, the government has posted a reward notice. We won't take your head, but you should leave us a token."

"Let me think..."

The bright moon was already hanging high.

The yaoguai finally left this place.

Under the moonlight, the senior brother and junior sister looked at each other, both smiling, feeling a bit relaxed in their hearts.

Since the yaoguai matter here was resolved and they knew how to find the Long Wang, they felt confident and naturally relaxed. This was the pleasant surprise the yaoguai brought them.

So they also returned one to him.

Lin Jue then put away the flying swords, and the Shimei put away the long sword and handed it back to Lin Jue. The two walked back under the moonlight.

The fox and the colored cat no longer needed to hide. Lin Jue was too lazy to carry them, so he let them walk on their own, running and jumping around. Only every time the colored cat looked at the fox, its eyes were a bit dazed, or it couldn't believe it.

They couldn't walk back to the thatched cottage in the middle of the night, so they had to walk to the Xiao family shop.

They asked for directions to find the thatched shop, knocked on the door, and asked for accommodation.

"You can only stay in this communal room."

The shopkeeper held an oil lamp, the light of which was not much brighter than the moonlight, pushed open a room door, and said to them.

Lin Jue looked around.

This thatched shop was actually similar to an ordinary person's house, and similar to the small thatched courtyard they lived in, only larger, with more thatched huts. At this time, many mules and donkeys were tied in the courtyard, and thunderous snoring sounds came from other rooms. It seems that thanks to that yaoguai, many merchants and travelers were staying here.

"We'll stay here."

"Pay first."

"Oh..."

The Xiao Shimei reached into her bosom, took out a string of copper coins tied with a small grass rope, exactly twenty wen, and handed it to the shopkeeper.

The shopkeeper put the money away and held up the oil lamp to light the way for them.

Inside the door was a large communal bed, extending from the far left to the far right of the room, covered with thick thatch, with a few bedrolls placed on it. Someone was already lying in the corner, but there was still plenty of room.

Looking closely, it was Qiao Xuefu, whom they had met earlier.

Lin Jue smiled.

"Hmm..."

The middle-aged man also woke up, opened his eyes to look by the light of the lamp, identified them carefully, and was immediately surprised: "It's you two?"

"Yes, it's truly fate."

"Didn't you go forward? You were afraid of the yaoguai and came back, right?"

"Not quite."

Lin Jue answered him with a smile.

Then he went in, put down the basket, climbed onto the communal bed, and sat down on the other side.

There were no conditions to speak of in such a place, just a place to shelter from the wind and rain, keep warm, and lie flat. They could make do with a night's sleep and couldn't be picky about anything else.

"No one else should come tonight. There is breakfast tomorrow morning, five wen per person, with a vegetable bun and an egg. If you want to eat, come find me."

The shopkeeper said this and then closed the door and went out.

Once the oil lamp was gone, the room was plunged into darkness, with only a little moonlight shining through a hole in the window above.

Those two seemed to have lain down to sleep as well.

The middle-aged man, however, was full of doubts.

These two always made him feel a bit strange.

However, both sides were just chance acquaintances, total strangers. Besides, it was late at night, and he had been woken up halfway through his sleep, his brain was still a bit muddled, and he didn't want to ask anything more.

He thought that if these two were yaoguai, they should have harmed him on the road just now. If they were robbers, he only had five wen of copper coins on him now, nothing worth their targeting. His life was bitter and lowly, so what was there to be afraid of?

So he squinted his eyes and fell asleep again.

Unexpectedly, halfway through his sleep, he suddenly saw the lamp in the room light up.

He opened his eyes in a daze, thinking someone had come in the middle of the night, but when he looked up, the door was closed, and another oil lamp was lit in the room.

The lamp was strange; he didn't see lamp oil, only lamp light.

The two people were sitting cross-legged on the bed talking to him.

Besides that, everything was muddled, as if the room was shrouded in a layer of ethereal mist; he could see things, but not clearly.

It wasn't just that he couldn't see clearly; he couldn't hear the words the two were saying to him clearly either. But strangely, although he couldn't hear the words or sentences they spoke clearly, he knew the meaning of what they were saying to him.

"Qiao Gong, greetings. Actually, we are not travelers on the road, but Daoist priests from Mount Yishan. Walking on the night road is not to go anywhere, but specifically to find that yaoguai here."

The middle-aged man's emotions were dull, and he didn't know how to answer at all.

And he didn't answer.

He vaguely sensed that this might be a dream.

The two Daoist figures sitting on the other side of the communal bed seemed to know this and continued to speak to themselves:

"Meeting Qiao Gong is truly a matter of fate. I didn't expect there to be another unexpected connection, and Qiao Gong's character and behavior are also admired by both yaoguai and humans.

"Now that yaoguai has been caught by us and ordered to return all the money, and it is not allowed to cause trouble in the future, this matter is settled.

"Although this yaoguai has never taken a human life and only caused trouble at night, and it only started causing trouble recently, the Runze County government still posted a reward notice. The reward is not much, just ten taels."

The middle-aged man didn't speak or move.

It even seemed as if there was no "himself."

There was only a perspective in the corner of the communal bed that could see that scene and hear the sound.

"Considering the connection with Qiao Gong, thinking that Qiao Gong's life will surely be difficult after paying off the debt, we have placed the token left by the yaoguai under the poplar tree on the right side of the official road entrance outside the thatched shop. If Qiao Gong is interested, you can take the token to the government to claim the reward after hearing that the yaoguai has returned the money, and just tell the truth."

The light in the room slowly dimmed.

The middle-aged man's consciousness seemed to disappear as well.

When he woke up, it was already early morning.

The door of the thatched cottage was wide open, the morning sun had already spilled in, the room was full of dust, and two puppies were barking in the basket.

"Ouch..."

The middle-aged man felt his head was exceptionally dizzy, his expression dazed, as if it were caused by oversleeping.

"Last night..."

The middle-aged man vaguely remembered that he had a dream, and that dream was quite strange.

He hurriedly turned his head to look at the room.

Those two young people were long gone.

"..."

The middle-aged man shook his head to cast away distracting thoughts, got up to put on his shoes, and shouldered his basket.

Last night's matter was obviously just a dream.

He thought it should be because he kept thinking about the yaoguai on the road yesterday, and these days he had been thinking mostly about such strange stories of yaoguai, ghosts, and immortals, so he had such a dream at night.

Dreams are nothing strange, no matter how strange they are.

They are even less worth taking seriously.

How could there be such wonderful things in the world? Not to mention that there are no such immortal things, even such good things as giving you money don't exist.

As for the headache, it should be because he caught a cold from the wind yesterday, or because he didn't sleep well in this thatched shop.

He had overslept, and it would be afternoon by the time he walked home.

After waking up, the dream was already blurry, and the middle-aged man soon threw it to the back of his mind and walked home with his basket.